Nothing bubbles Heat's blood like Indiana's mouth

Three years of bubbling blood leads into Sunday's tip-off

May 17, 2014|Dave Hyde, Sun Sentinel Columnist

INDIANAPOLIS — Ignore the filtered adjectives and sanitized answers from the Heat and Pacers on the eve of the Eastern Conference finals. The quiet hours before Sunday's Game 1 have tongues on best behavior.

Heat guard Dwyane Wade called Indiana a, "tough team, the one we expected to meet all along." Indiana coach Frank Vogel said the Pacers had to play a "near-perfect" game to beat the Heat.

Pacers guard Lance Stephenson pushed the envelope as far as anyone, saying he thought Wade's knee was, "messed up," and vowed to run hard to, "make his knee flare up or something."

But that's as far as anyone pushed. Don't listen to the players now to gauge the real temperature of this rivalry.

Listen to them then.

Rewind the tape and hear what the Heat and the Pacers have said the past few years to understand the bubbling blood that walks on the court for Game 1 Sunday afternoon.

No team in sports has won as much as the Heat of late. No team has won so little and talked so big as Indiana, a team with more presumption than achievement.

Some simple asides have caught the Heat's attention, as when Pacers center Roy Hibbert tweeted to Portland's LaMarcus Aldridge after their December game, "See you in the Finals."

Others aren't asides.

"The Heat are the biggest flopping team in the NBA," Vogel said before the 2012 series.

"Built Not Bought," was the anti-Heat slogan this franchise adopted.

"Choke!" Indiana guard Lance Stephenson shouted from the bench, his hand around his throat, when LeBron James missed a late free throw in a 2012 playoff game.

"I'm not going to stoop down to Lance Stephenson," LeBron said to the media then. "Lance Stephenson? You guys want me to talk about Lance Stephenson? I'm not even going to give him the time. Knock it off."

Is it coming back now? The cocktail of emotions these teams carry into this series? The reason why Wade said before the Brooklyn series, when asked about some bad blood with Paul Pierce, that, "There's more bad blood waiting out there for us?"

Udonis Haslem can rub above his left eyebrow and feel the faded scar of nine stitches from sticking up for Wade by battering Indiana's Tyler Hansbrough two years ago. Haslem received a one-game suspension from the league and a game ball from teammates for that.

"It's all fun to beat the Heat up in the media and say, 'The Heat are soft,' '' Haslem said of the Pacers then. "But as soon as the Heat stand up and hit back it's not so fun anymore."

There are layers to the developed relationships on the court. LeBron once called the tactics of the now-departed Pacers to knock him around as, "Stupid."

Hibbert, who has caused the Heat fits at times, said, "I guess they don't have an answer."

The lava is so close to the surface emotions aren't just spewed at the other side. Wade and coach Erik Spoelstra famously shouted at each during a timeout in Indiana during the 2012 playoffs. LeBron jumped in the face of Mario Chalmers during a timeout this winter during an Indiana game.

Why? Because this is how badly each team wants to beat the other. The Heat still remember the Indiana's Paul George dancing on the AmericanAirlines Arena court after a Game 2 playoff win in 2012.

"I saw their little celebration at the end of that game," Wade said then. "I don't know if they didn't expect to win. But every night we go out on the court, we expect to win. They stated their identity. They said they wanted to be like Dallas (which won the 2011 title on the Heat's court). So they celebrated like Dallas, I guess."

That mindset hasn't changed. Nor have the beliefs. Do the Pacers think the Heat could beat them in a Game 7 in Indianapolis?

"We don't," George told radio host Jim Rome this winter. "I mean, we know how well we play at home. We're one of the best teams in the postseason last year defending homecourt."

Does George think he should go from Most Improved Player last year to Most Valuable Player this year?

"I do," George told Rome. "It's what we do as a team that will separate me and make me the MVP."

George finished ninth in the MVP voting this year. But he doesn't back down from the coming furor, as is Indiana's personality, saying, "I'm looking forward to the matchup [with LeBron]."

Then he smiled widely. It's the smile that sticks with the Heat, the young challenger that's never won acting out too much. Not that the Heat say it now on series' eve. So listen to them back then.

"They've been talking a lot," James said last season about Indiana. "I read a lot of clips they had before the season, said they were better than us and they should have beat us. … It is amusing sometimes, you see guys, you see teams talking and they didn't beat you."

Maybe Indiana has learned something after three years, though.

"I think we're ready this time and we've got to show it — not talk about it, show it," Stephenson said Saturday.

Or maybe these are just more bubble-wrapped words to ignore right before tip-off.